Eastleigh

[DubaiSpur]

What, like World War 2? Oh and also your doing great over there in France too by the way. "Lets impose a 75% tax rate on our most ambitious, and highest tax payers, and scare them all off to our neighbouring countries."
And, who do you think you are, Gordon Brown?

Do you prefer small government? Do you like the idea of low tax rates and little intervention in you, the citizen, living the way you want to live? Do you tire of those pitiable little lazy people who refuse to work to get to where you are today? Then prepare for good news, because there is a perfect, completely free-market, libertarian dream waiting for you! a perfect little place, with warm beaches, lovely people and none of those idle scroungers and meddling bureacrats who started World War Two. The sun always shines in this little slice of heaven, hugging the contours of the Horn of Africa.....

...yes, life's good in free-market, small government, institution-less Somalia.

If you think that comparison is unfair, then the same applies to your assertion that socialism started the Second World War and that the only socialist countries worth mentioning are Cuba and North Korea. The latter, by the way, removed all references to socialism from its constitution and articles of law in 2009, and, given its Juche ideology, is more a militaristic dictatorship than it is a socialist regime.

The Nordic countries do absolutely fine implementing both a high tax rate and 'socialist' forms of common good provisions that have led to their populations being some of the most educated, healthy, happy and crime-free anywhere in the world. Yet they are rarely, if ever trotted out as an example by right-wingers, and when they are it is with the caveat that they have 'tons of oil so they can do what they want', mainly referring to Norway. Yes, they do have a lot of oil. They also have stored the vast majority of the funds from that oil in untouchable, ring-fenced future-funds, to provide for when they run out of it. In the meantime, they get by on high taxation with hardly a care in the world.

This isn't directed at you in particular, but right-wingers in general ,which may or may not include you. They accuse socialists and the hard left of using the 'politics of envy' and greed. But greed, however, is something they themselves espouse as being 'good' and 'right' and the only possible way human society will develop. Leave each to their own, and to hell with those left behind! Greed is good, etcetera, etcetera.

Yet, when the hard left advocates a redistribution of wealth to more evenly represent the contribution all classes make to society, they hysterically scream 'greed! The politics of envy! Mean lefties! Soviet Russia! Commies! North Korea! Death camps! Economic RUIN!'

So, in effect, they cry and demand protection when the lower class shows 'greed' when they want a more equitable share of the pie, but it's perfectly acceptable when right wingers espouse 'greed' as the prime motivator in society and a reason to encourage predatory, destructive social behaviour, by removing regulations, laws and institutions designed to protect people from feeling the worst of the effects of...... unfettered greed.

They have their own cake, and eat it, which seems inherently wrong. And what do they use to confront the hard left? Fear. Every time the 'liberal' or 'working' class has tried to demand a change in society that benefits them, the right, and the wealthier members of society within it, scream at the top of their lungs that these things will destroy the economy, that they will drive entrepreneurs to suicide, that they will force businesses and plutocrats to move abroad, that they will sign the death warrant on any chance of the unemployed ever working again, etcetera, etcetera.

They whip up this fear of everything socialist, and everything leftist, to hide the fact that they themselves are total hypocrites; espousing 'greed' when it suits them, but dressing it up as 'envy' when it doesn't. Dismantling government services because they provide benefits to the proles, but demanding government assistance when these proles have the audacity to form unions and strike back. Espousing the 'free market' system as the pinnacle of human existence while (at the toe end) actively pursuing practices that create vast monopolies and oligopolies across hundreds of economic sectors, strangling small businesses and buying out any competitors that might pose a threat while demanding lower taxes to benefit the 'small businesses' they have determined must be either destroyed or assimilated.

This is the income inefficiency co-efficient. Note that many of the countries that have a smaller income disparity than the UK (Japan, Germany, France) manage to both economically compete with the UK and provide excellent social services to their people. Economic ruin and World war 2, indeed.

 

[Gordinho]

Do you prefer small government...

I didn't want to quote the whole thing but great post.

If the applause emoticon worked I'd use it here.

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

RE: the Austalian Liberal party, Liberal doesn't mean left wing. In this context, they are economically liberal, believing in free markets. That is what the above charts are trying to say.

Left/Right is merely a measure of economic control. Far right in this context means economically liberal with little interference from government. The Australian Liberal party are socially conservative, but economically liberal. That doesn't make them any less liberal than a party that is socially liberal.

They are Tories, that is the point. Your reference to Nazis being socialist, is nonsense and ignores the stark historical facts. I know it's inconvenient but...

 

[Hootnow]

I never knew this forum was for Cuban/North korean spurs fans. #-o

Excellent, I always like to be educated.

Could you point me to the posters or even just posts which espouse views you would consider typical of the Cuban or North Korean governments?

After that, could you quickly run me through how socialism was the cause of the second world war?

Finally, could you explain to me how a largely symbolic taxation law, which as far as I'm aware has yet to be implemented after being struck down by the constitutional court has 'scared off' high French earners in a country that since the inception of the Fifth republic has been very apprehensive about electing leftist leaders? Along this thread, could you also explain to me the reasons that French expats voted in a mostly socialist pattern in the last election, despite people thinking they would overwhelmingly vote for Sarkozy?

Appreciated.

 

[Hootnow]

I'll be interested to see why wealth would be going down while incomes have clearly gone up for the poorest. Is it a personal choice from a shift in investment/saving to consumption? I wonder



Now I understand the bleeding hearts might want to see a perfect 20/20/20/20/20 split amongst all 5 groups, but I don't see a huge amount to complain about in that graphic. Almost 60% of those born in to the poorest 20% of households will move up in their lives, with around 1 in 10 of the poorest 40% ending up in the top 20%. Not perfect, but that's actually pretty good in terms of income mobility.



While I'm not sure whether it is or not an either/or situation, the point is irrelevant to the discussion. Whenever anyone talks about the gap in incomes, it is always about how over time the gap has increased and this is a bad thing, as if people were better off when the gap was smaller. However when you look at the figures, the poor are better off than they were before. I'm not saying it's perfect, but the poor are clearly better off now than they were at a time when income inequality was smaller. Does income inequality matter so long as the poor are getting better off in real terms?

And remember, movement up and down the quintiles means that the 60% of the poor who have moved up the ladder are significantly richer than their parents, and those 8% who made it to the top quintile have a median income 100x that of their parents.

Thatcher was right when she said many would rather see the poor poorer so long as the rich were less rich.

Higher living prices and more debt? A student leaving university now is coming out at 21 already in debt of 5 figures. With the 9,000, the debt will be huge. A lot of the families I know who live in this kind of situation have to live to their paycheck. They're not living in luxury, instead their dual paychecks barely cover their bills and living expenses, as well as mortgage if they're lucky enough to have one.

Yeah, its alright. I may be generally 'left' on most issues Richie but I am also a meritocrat. I know you think the state and society should interfere as little as possible in peoples' lives but I would argue that they already do and not in a particularly useful way a lot of the time. I want it to be close to 20/20/20/20/20 not because I believe in a communist utopia but because I don't think someone growing up in a lower socio-economic group gets the same opportunities as someone in a higher one and it is this societal issue which is the problem, as opposed to any lack of intelligence or effort on their part.

Yes it does because in the long term, it breeds contempt and anger. In a very silly scenario, say someone is already significantly richer than me. In this 2 man world, we increase output by £1. I get 1p. He gets 99p. He has not worked 99 times harder than me. This is especially the case in situations like we have now, where certain institutions have had a disproportionate role in causing the whole country financial hardship, have had to be bailed out by the taxpayer and then carry on with their same old practices.

And most importantly, how on earth is the point irrelevent to the discussion? If there's growth, people want to be a part of it fairly. Start excluding people and they create trouble.

That thatcher quote, in one sentence, illustrates the utter contempt that woman showed for vast swathes of the country she led but I'll leave it there, I know she's basically a GHod on this board.


As for the Nazi socialist thing, I do not have time to write the response I wanted to for that, so I apologise. So I will say the thing that I think makes the most sense considering the very small amount of time I have to write this sentence. Socialism is, in theory, a political system for the people/workers. It is state/collective owned supposedly for the benefit of the working class or for society in general. This was obviously not the case in Nazi Germany, where workers had no rights and you did what the state told you to do or you were off. Hitler took on the big industrialists because he wanted to control the war economy.

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

The idea of left vs right governments is fundementally flawed. For example, people consider Hitler to be 'far right', but in reality he was a socialist. That is where the word Nazi comes from, national socialism. If anything, Hitler was to the left of the current Labour party. The same can be said for the BNP.

When comparing governments, left/right isn't enough. You need to use cartisian graphs (2 axis) to denote it, with x-axis (left/right) being economical measure of socialism/free markets and y-axis (top/bottom) being a social measure of authoratarian/libertarian. Here's the UK parties in 2010 (link)

Say what you want about Stalin, but at least he was consistent with his philosphy. He had total governmental control of social policy (as an authoritarian) and total governmental control of the economy (communism). Funnily enough these days the 'left' want to control the economy but not society, and the 'right' want to control society and not the economy. Contrasting views IMO.

I urge everyone to check out the political compass website and see where you really fall on the political map. With reference to the chart above, last time I took the test I was in line with UKIP/Conservative on the x-axis (left/right) and the Lib Dems on the y-axis (up/down). Sadly, there's no legit 'right wing' Libertarian party in the UK. I'd vote for Ron Paul in a heartbeat though.

Take the test (Link)

HAHAHA

what the fudge i did the test mate and it said im a LEFTIE arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh not a mad leftie but just slightly into the red.

Well i do not mind foreign companies/countries buying some of our countries companies and industries but the are certain things i do not think should be sold off. Some of that test was not cool because i agree with punishment for crime but not quite as severe as that test made out. Still kind of funny because i thought i would come out well to the right but not the case.

Also funny thing happened recently i got into quite an argument with someone about super yachts. This guy i was talking to was saying how great and amazing they were and how some fella is mooring a £60m one in southampton and i actually said it was pathetic and they should do something more worthwhile with their money. Honestly if i had that sort of money i could not justify it.

We brought a jaguar 2 years ago and i love it but i can not see how you could sleep at night spending so much on a past time/holiday when there are people starving. I have just started up a new business but it is not aimed at just making money, wont last long if we dont make money but it is more about achieving something then just making money.

I do not get how people like the chelsea owner are happy to just mess around as playboys when the are is so much wrong in the world that they could help to change.

I still hate benefits cheats but then i also see this woman who is blind in one eye and has some serious medical problem that she has to go into hospital for surgery for and she is not classed as medically ill and the government say she can work and i think the country is a little fudged up. maybe i am a leftie after all.

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

HAHAHA

what the fudge i did the test mate and it said im a LEFTIE arghhhhhhhhhhhhhh not a mad leftie but just slightly into the red.

Well i do not mind foreign companies/countries buying some of our countries companies and industries but the are certain things i do not think should be sold off. Some of that test was not cool because i agree with punishment for crime but not quite as severe as that test made out. Still kind of funny because i thought i would come out well to the right but not the case.

Also funny thing happened recently i got into quite an argument with someone about super yachts. This guy i was talking to was saying how great and amazing they were and how some fella is mooring a £60m one in southampton and i actually said it was pathetic and they should do something more worthwhile with their money. Honestly if i had that sort of money i could not justify it.

We brought a jaguar 2 years ago and i love it but i can not see how you could sleep at night spending so much on a past time/holiday when there are people starving. I have just started up a new business but it is not aimed at just making money, wont last long if we dont make money but it is more about achieving something then just making money.

I do not get how people like the chelsea owner are happy to just mess around as playboys when the are is so much wrong in the world that they could help to change.

I still hate benefits cheats but then i also see this woman who is blind in one eye and has some serious medical problem that she has to go into hospital for surgery for and she is not classed as medically ill and the government say she can work and i think the country is a little fudged up. maybe i am a leftie after all.

Didn't I say you were a socialist? Welcome comrade!!

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

Hey guess what, I have come across one pro- worker Nazi policy. On gaining the leadership of Germany, Hitler granted the unions a labour day holiday. He then banned the unions. :-k

 

[Richie]

Hey guess what, I have come across one pro- worker Nazi policy. On gaining the leadership of Germany, Hitler granted the unions a labour day holiday. He then banned the unions. :-k

The left/right doesn't define unions, it defines state intervention in to the economy. The right believe in lasseiz-faire economics and free markets. The left believe in state control, regulation and nationalisation. In these terms, Hitler was left rather than right in todays politics. Obviously he is way to the right of Communism. Anyways, I said I'm not going to continue to debate it and I'm not. There are whole fudging books written on the economics of National Socialism.

My point is that it seems like I'm trying to explain how a the Cartesian graph system of political mapping is far more useful and you're stuck in your ideas of you think the left and right represent. Left and right wing are completely inadequate to describe governments. Here's another graph to illustrate.

Fascism is neither left or right because it isn't a measure of economic policy, more one of social policy and is where Hitlers (and the BNPs) real extremism lies. The opposite of fascism isn't communism, it's anarchism. Read this page http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 for a more in depth analysis on the general idea and here http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010 for more on what really constitutes the 'extreme right'.

 

[Richie]

Also another point to make is that Hitler is to the right of the post war Labour party who are actually on the left of these Cartesian graph, but the whole political spectrum has shifted right, and most western governments (with the exception of Francois Hollande) are on the right of the economic scale.

Edit: Here is an entire section of the politicalcompass FAQ about the positioning of Hitler and Nazi Germany http://www.politicalcompass.org/faq#faq19

 

[Lily White]

Didn't I say you were a socialist? Welcome comrade!!

I was well into the green, a real liberal leftie I always thought I was more central and maybe slightly right.

 

[Gilzeantoscore]

The left/right doesn't define unions, it defines state intervention in to the economy. The right believe in lasseiz-faire economics and free markets. The left believe in state control, regulation and nationalisation. In these terms, Hitler was left rather than right in todays politics. Obviously he is way to the right of Communism. Anyways, I said I'm not going to continue to debate it and I'm not. There are whole fudging books written on the economics of National Socialism.

My point is that it seems like I'm trying to explain how a the Cartesian graph system of political mapping is far more useful and you're stuck in your ideas of you think the left and right represent. Left and right wing are completely inadequate to describe governments. Here's another graph to illustrate.

Fascism is neither left or right because it isn't a measure of economic policy, more one of social policy and is where Hitlers (and the BNPs) real extremism lies. The opposite of fascism isn't communism, it's anarchism. Read this page http://www.politicalcompass.org/analysis2 for a more in depth analysis on the general idea and here http://www.politicalcompass.org/ukparties2010 for more on what really constitutes the 'extreme right'.

As I have already commented, I am not really interested in labels, rather I judge on what individuals and parties do. That was my point re Hitler and the unions and the nonsense that the Nazis were socialist. Read some history!

 

[Skinhead in a Suit]

I was well into the green, a real liberal leftie I always thought I was more central and maybe slightly right.

I scored right around "Ghandi". Didn't think I was that extreme (relatively) but hey ho, rather there than with some of the other names in that chart.

 

[Richie]

I scored right around "Ghandi". Didn't think I was that extreme (relatively) but hey ho, rather there than with some of the other names in that chart.

This is a perfect example of why a graph is needed rather than a simple 'left/right'. I'm right by Freidman on that graph which means we will likely disagree on everything economics but on social issues we will likely have a lot of common ground. I'm right wing, you're left wing but I'm sure we agree on a lot of things.

 

[Crawley]

This is a perfect example of why a graph is needed rather than a simple 'left/right'. I'm right by Freidman on that graph which means we will likely disagree on everything economics but on social issues we will likely have a lot of common ground. I'm right wing, you're left wing but I'm sure we agree on a lot of things.

It's true, isn't it?

I consider myself right-wing (UKIP) but my economics come out just left of center. Which I'm not surprised at. I detest corporation greed for instance, but do believe in a free market.
I come out dead center between authoritarian and libertarian, and that does surprise me a little.

 

[Crawley]

It's true, isn't it?

I consider myself right-wing (UKIP) but my economics come out just left of center. Which I'm not surprised at. I detest corporation greed for instance, but do believe in a free market.
I come out dead center between authoritarian and libertarian, and that does surprise me a little.

Also, strangely, I come out closest to The Scottish Nationalists and Plaid Cymru, two groups I disagree with completely.

 

[Skinhead in a Suit]

This is a perfect example of why a graph is needed rather than a simple 'left/right'. I'm right by Freidman on that graph which means we will likely disagree on everything economics but on social issues we will likely have a lot of common ground. I'm right wing, you're left wing but I'm sure we agree on a lot of things.

That's a fair point, but I'm sure I remember being taught in school that the left/right argument isn't a straight line, but more circular where the two extremes, Fascism and Communism, almost meet...?

 

[Richie]

It's true, isn't it?

I consider myself right-wing (UKIP) but my economics come out just left of center. Which I'm not surprised at. I detest corporation greed for instance, but do believe in a free market.
I come out dead center between authoritarian and libertarian, and that does surprise me a little.

Surely this is contradictory though? You may detest corporate greed, but the very essence of a free market is allowing businesses to do what they want with little interference from the state

 

[Crawley]

Surely this is contradictory though? You may detest corporate greed, but the very essence of a free market is allowing businesses to do what they want with little interference from the state

Well, no. Why is it beyond the realms of possibility for a Corporation to act fairly and respectfully to others?

Dream world, maybe. But compare it to our current crop of football stars. Many will simply move in an attempt to acquire more and more wealth (Ibrahimovich?)
But there are some out there who are capable of acting with a degree of loyalty and respect, despite the earnings on offer.

 

[Richie]

That's a fair point, but I'm sure I remember being taught in school that the left/right argument isn't a straight line, but more circular where the two extremes, Fascism and Communism, almost meet...?

I think this is a misconception. The opposite to Communism isn't Fascism, but a laissez-faire economy with no government interference at all. The opposite of Fascism (a totalitarian state) is Anarchism which is having no government at all. In terms of government control over society, there wasn't much difference between Hitler and Stalin, they were both totalitarian regimes.